Presto

PRESTO
EXCHANGE VALUES
OF OLD PIANOS
Experienced Chicago Sales Manager Said This
Week That Putting Too Great a Valua-
tion on Old Instruments Is Big
Detriment to Trade.
In discussing piano trade matters this week a Chi-
cago sales manager said two great detriments to the
health of the retail piano business was the disposition
of many salesmen to concede too easy terms in order
to close a sale and a weakness in putting too big a
value on the pianos taken in exchange.
This last mentioned phase he said was the greatest
source of worry to managers in houses where there
is no standard prices for old instruments. In effect-
ing an exchange value the salesman has to deal with
shrewdness and sentiment. The foxy prospects are
aware of the eagerness of the salesman to close the
deal, and settling the figure is often a case of long-
winded bargaining.
The sentimental old-piano
owners who put a historic or old-associations value
on the instrument are often inflexible in their esti-
mate of the piano's worth.
Ths Sentimental Valuation.
The young salesman especially listens too well to
the sentimental prospect's opinion of the instrument.
One can understand why the old piano owner may
sometimes value it out of all proportion to business
reason. There is something pathetic in it. But the
frequency of such instances shows the wisdom of
establishing a standard of exchange va'ues and an
accompanying one-price rule. There should be no
taking of pianos in exchange at such high valuation
that after necessary repairs have been made there can
be little or no profit for the dealer in the exchange
and sale transaction.
The salesman for the house with no one-price rule
may quote a price of expediency when an old piano
exchange is proposed. If $300 on time payments
would ordinarily be an acceptable price for his Fence-
wire Upright he would feel safe in asking $500 for it
before the prospect suggested a $150 or $200 rebate
for the relic. It would leave the wily salesman room
to shave the Fencewire quotation and to modify the
sentimental claims of the old piano owner.
Points to Other Trades.
The unstandardized custom of allowances on
old instruments has been an upsetting feature of the
trade, but in time every exchange will conform to a
nationally observed rule. In the matter of allow-
ances for exchanges the automobile industry offers a
fine analogy. Automobile manufacturers and dealers
realized long ago that if the business is to go forward
there must be some profit on every transaction. It
should be so in the piano business. Obtaining busi-
ness on false valuations is not salesmanship at all in
the correct sense of the word.
A standard of valuations for the exchange of the
old pianos is the best. But where no standard has
been adopted the salesmen should use good judgment
in estimating the value of the exchange instrument
and be neither brow-beaten by the shrewd customer
or influenced by the sentimental one in changing
his decision. The salesman should stand for an
allowance that will permit a profit in reselling the
instrument.
Of course standardizing the exchange prices is all
right if you confine your exchange transactions to
pianos and players and organs. But in this wide
piano territory of the United States exchanges of a
different kind are possible.
Other Exchange Commodities.
A bright salesman from a Knoxville, Tenn., piano
house was canvassing for sales of pianos and organs
in a remote part of Montgomery county last summer
and saw an opportunity for an exchange trade that
was really selling the instrument for cash. He had
been trying to induce the father of two ambitious
school teachers to buy a piano. But the combined
arguments of the salesman and the schoolma'ams
proved fruitless.
A proposal to take the wheezy
organ in trade was equally so. The trade seemed
hopeless and the salesman standing up to go sur-
prised the farmer and his family by saying:
"Well, as you won't buy a piano or trade for your
organ I guess I'll as good as present you with one."
He spoke seriously, and the farmer and the school-
ma'am daughters looked wonderingly at him.
"I mean what I say. Dig up that old stump over
there by the roots. Tote it over to the railroad for
me and I'll give you the piano the girls wanted you
to buy for them."
"Now I know yo-all's crazy. Thar ain't a saw in
ol' Tenn'see kin rip through the guts o' that al' w T al-
nut stump. See that bole," directed the farmer.
The salesman saw the bole from the start and
appraised its value as veneer. The trade was a good
one.
"Sure I see the bole, but I like 'em that way. Is
it a go?"
"It is. But I hate to take advantage of a lunatic.
Up she comes if you want 'er."
WARN MUSIC MERCHANTS
ABOUT LIBERTY BONDS
July 21, 1923
MATT J. KENNEDY
GETS PREMIER LINE
President Hepperla, of Premier Grand Piano
Corporation, New York, Appoints Popular
Chicago Man Wholesale Representative of
Big Grand Line in Middle West.
Walter C. Hepperla, president of Premier Grand
Piano Corporation, New York, manufacturers of
baby grand pianos exclusively, has just announced
that in pursuance of the characteristic Premier policy
of more and more intensive service in behalf of the
rapidly growing Premier trade, he closed arrange-
Music merchants should be careful, when accepting
ments at the recent national convention at Chicago,
registered Liberty bonds, to see that they were not
with Matt J. Kennedy, who has been appointed
registered originally in the name of a minor, is the Premier wholesale representative, with wholesale dis-
warning of the Music Industries Chamber of Com- play warerooms located at 532 Republic Building.
merce. Under the present interpretation of the regu-
There the complete line of Premier baby grands,
lations of the Treasury Department, a bond registered
player
grands and reproducing grands will be on dis-
in the name of a minor cannot be assigned by parent
or guardian to a music merchant in part payment for play, and piano merchants of Chicago and Milwau-
kee, as well as dealers throughout the Central West,
musical instruments used in the musical education of
the minor.
This is because the Treasury Department does not
consider "musical education" as coming within the
provisions of the 6th supplement to Department cir-
cular No. 141, which provides that such assignment
can be made under certain conditions, if proceeds
are necessary for the support or education of the
minor.
The Music Industries Chamber of Commerce has
already taken steps to convince the Treasury Depart-
ment that a musical education is an essential part of
general education and, therefore, that the depart-
ment should allow the assignment of bonds of minors
for the purchase of musical instruments necessary to
a musical education.
Pending a successful outcome of this controversy,
however, merchants should be exceedingly careful in
accepting registered bonds from minors. In fact,
even though the Chamber is successful in getting the
Treasury Department to consider musical education
to be an essential part of general education, regis-
tered bonds of minors should be accepted only after
careful investigation, as regulations with respect to
their assignment are very complicated. Upon re-
quest the Chamber would be glad to provide a copy
of the 6th supplement to Treasury Department cir-
cular No. 141, covering this subject.
Music Industries' Chamber of Commerce
Cautious Against Accepting in Trade
Bonds Registered in Name of Minor.
NEW INCORPORATIONS
IN MUSIC GOODS TRADE
MATT J. KENNEDY.
when visiting Chicago, will be enabled to personally
see and inspect the varied line of Premier products
and place their orders. Such dealers who do not as
Mew and Old Concerns Secure Charters in Various
yet control the sale of this comprehensive line of
Places.
grand pianos, may arrange for Premier representa-
tions for their territory, when visiting the Chicago
The Fay-Buchanan Music Co., St. Louis, Mo., to wholesale warerooms. Mr. Kennedy takes on the
buy and sell musical instruments; $10,000; E. E. sale of the entire Premier small grand line, in addi-
Fay, W. B. Buchanan and Lynden S. Buchanan.
tion to the piano lines he already represents.
Bernfeld's Musical Bureau, Bronx, New York;
Able and Prominent.
$10,000; A. Bernfeld, H. Haimovitz and J. Hirsch.
Victory Piano Co., New York City; $10,000; F.
The Premier wholesale representative in Chicago is
Barber; M. Greene and P. Herlowitz.
a widely known figure in the musical instrument in-
Lockwood-Friend, Buffalo, N. Y.; $5,000; I. M. dustry, very prominent in association work, an ex-
Weiss and others.
ceedingly capable sales executive and a man with a
personality that has made for him a host of friends
WOULD OPEN IN DES MOINES.
throughout the country. Mr. Kennedy's office at the
Republic Building, Chicago, has long been regarded
John Davies, the Streator, 111., piano man, is
planning to open a store in Des Moines, la., if he is a friendship center for piano men from every point
able to secure the desirable building. Mr. Davies does of the compass. The addition of Mr. Kennedy to the
Premier selling force is another example of Premier
not plan to leave Streator entirely, for he has a well-
established business in that city and will operate close co-operation with the trade, and a further indi-
cation of the constant growth of this business in the
there, regardless of whether he is able or not to find
a good location in Des Moines for a store. Mr. Da- Mid-West section.
vies has had a store here on North Bloomington
Territory Well Served.
street, but because of the improvements to the build-
With
Mr.
Kennedy's
activities in the Chicago dis-
ing which are anticipated by the owners of the Illi-
trict and Charles Grundy's selling efforts in the en-
nois hotel he had to move out.
tire territory throughout the Central West, there is
established still closer co-operation and functioning in
EARLE E. CONWAY SAILS.
behalf of the Premier, in one of the most important
Earle E. Conway, president of the Hallet & Davis selling zones in this country.
Piano Co., Boston, sailed last week on the steamship
Mr. Grundy, as is well known, has been associated
Samaria, accompanied by Mrs. Conway and their with the Premier during a period almost as long as
two daughters. The trip is in the nature of a vaca- the existence of this large piano-making corporation,
tion with a little business combined for Mr. Conway. the impressive history of which has been truly re-
The party will visit England, during which time Mr. garded as an outstanding feature of the industry.
Conway will call on the London representatives of
Mr. Kennedy's appointment completes the chain of
the Angelus, Sir Herbert Marshall & Sons, Inc.
Premier Wholesale Representatives from coast to
coast, comprising his headquarters at Chicago, in the
Mid-West district; the Pacific Coast representation
ACQUIRES APPLETON BUSINESS.
Irving Tuelke, Appleton, Wis., recently purchased at Los Angeles, Cal., headquarters of Charles B.
the stock and good will of Kamp & Stoffels in the Boothe, and the executive offices of the Premier
same city. Mr. Tuelke, who also .has a Milwaukee Grand Piano Corporation in New York City.
store, means to consolidate his old and his newly pur-
chased business in Appleton. The stock of Kamps
The Glenn Bros.-Roberts Co., Salt Lake City, Utah,
& Stoffels will be disposed of in a lively sale to be will open a new store about September 1 at 2546
announced this week.
Washington avenue, Ogden, Utah.
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